


On His Terms

by haphephobiaisfun



Category: Acquisitions Inc., Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, The C Team, The CTeam
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 12:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haphephobiaisfun/pseuds/haphephobiaisfun
Summary: K'thriss quietly deals with his physical body being slowly taken over by an entity he loathes.





	On His Terms

K’thriss Drow’b had never experienced dreaming. Instead of sleeping, he entered a trance each night. This prohibited him from having these picturesque moments of unconsciousness that he had heard others speak of. If he had the ability to dream, K'thriss assumed such dreams would primarily be a rehash of his hundreds of years of memories. Perhaps he would experience memories of his mother, of the Meat and Mouths, or of Ligotti destroying his eyes. K'thriss often considered how intriguing it would be for his mind to randomly provide such an experience.

When he began to have such an experience, K’thriss was more perplexed than anything. It started with the loss of his eyes. The drow had a singular vision as his consciousness began to exit the trance period one morning. It brought a view of dark amethyst walls enclosing a small room in which K’thriss stood. The walls began to move in closer, threatening to crush him. Over the clamor of the gemstone walls scraping across the ground, a voice called out which appeared to come from everywhere at once.

“You will cease only on our terms. You will never escape. You belong to us in mind and body.” 

K’thriss did not fear death, nor did he believe the threat of never experiencing death. The mortal shell that he was condemned to inhabit would see to that as it eventually deteriorated. This was the experience of all flesh and bone mortals. K’thriss gave it little thought as time passed.

After a short time, crystalline gems take over the skin and sockets of his missing eyes. Unbeknownst to those around him, that was only the first such transformation. K’thriss soon discovered that no part of him which had endured injury could escape the metamorphosis into scars of hardened ruby. Every cut of a blade, every magical effect that harmed him, every bruise from blunt force… each were transformed into the ruby crystals that took over his flesh. Even something as simple as Donaar smacking him on the back in jest left a raised, faceted plateau in the shape of a dragonborn’s hand.

As the crystals grew across his body, he found his dreams became far more frequent. They began to change, not only in frequency but in content. The nightmarish room of amethyst walls now provided a large reflective surface in which the drow could see his reflection. Initially K’thriss saw only the outline of his figure as he approached, but as he drew closer, the panel revealed a sickening visage. K'thriss was entirely made of crystalline rock. All of his features and details, such as skin color or hair, gave way to a chiseled ruby and amethyst appearance. The gemstone body was fairly translucent. K’thriss saw the little light that the room had bounce off of the his now hardened body as he continued to approach. From there, the voice in the vision began to mock him again.

“You will cease only on our terms. We will crush you when your usefulness has expired. You cannot escape.” 

 

After a year or so, the large patches of ruby had increased across his skin, to the point that it looked like splash damage. These were not simply crystals that could be removed from the surface like a jeweled scab. Many of them also found their way below the skin, forcibly rerouting veins and impeding on bones and muscle. The situation was clear. The Sanguilith had seized a deadly percentage of the drow’s physical form. To try to remove these crystalline areas was to court death. It had K’thriss in its inescapable grasp. There was little to do but conceal the horror of such a metamorphosis from those around him. His mask of many faces would assist nicely with that.

Alone in his room, the mask would be removed each night, and K’thriss would take stock of what was happening to him. The others, his friends… it would do little good to share this information with them. He saw how they reacted to his eyes, and later his forearm. But almost half of his body? K’thriss supposed it might be too much for them.

_They would worry too much,_ he reasoned.

No, that wasn’t it.

_They would try to find solutions, wasting time that could be devoted to higher priority matters._

Wrong answer.

_Well, surely they would be full of questions. I have been hiding it this long, after all._

Except, that wasn’t it either.

The drow sat in his room one night, subconsciously running his hand over the hardened areas on his torso. He thought about all the times he hid his crystal scars from others. He hid them from Fenn, who would have gone into full oviator mode and tried to assist with creating or locating a solution. He also kept them from Walnut, with whom he still shared a special bond. Both would be upset when they found out, so what was it that kept him in silence over this, risking their ire or worse?

K’thriss closed his eyes in concentration. He knew the reason he was hiding this affliction. Fear rattled him. It was not because of the inevitability of death. Hundreds of years of life prepared him for that. He saw death as a door to a new experience, but _this_ death, this would be a death purely on the terms of the Sanguilith, not his own. It was a premeditated destruction, robbing K’thriss of the wonder of how death would come for him and what all could be learned from that final experience. K’thriss was powerless to stop this. That powerlessness, coupled with his disdain for the Sanguilith, made him fear the inevitability of this life's end.

_It is trying to take from me that which is mine to experience on my terms_ , he thought angrily.

As he concentrated on what that meant, he continued to run his hand up and down his torso, before he stopped to cling tightly to the Ur. His hand began to tremble as the drow became angry.

_No,_ K’thriss thought. _I cannot be concerned with how my death occurs. There is only one goal at this juncture. If I must die, let it be because we have destroyed the Sanguilith. Let my death be a byproduct of the victory I desire. I will hide my condition for now and focus on this matter. I pray my friends forgive my deception._

 

Later, as K’thriss stood on a ship in the space above Toril, surrounded by disbelieving friends, he felt a bit of regret for not sharing his condition with them sooner. The ruby gems that replaced his eyes were easy enough to play off. The crystalline arm? Those present were too upset by the violent loss of his flesh arm to think too much about the new appendage formed.

But now? Now K’thriss had revealed his true form: a drow whose body was being overtaken by hardened ruby and amethyst-tinged scars. Walnut broke her silence, her voice laced with confusion and hurt.

“K’thriss, why didn’t you tell us?”

Her words pained him. His gaze moved to a surprised Donaar and then to a worried Rosie. He would have kept this to himself forever, but things had changed suddenly. Here in space, the Sanguilith was near, close enough to pursue and destroy. Once K’thriss realized how close the goal was, he finally dropped the mask.

“What happens to you?” Rosie asked in a panicked tone as she inspected the drow’s jeweled wounds from where she stood. “If we destroy it, what happens to you?! Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

K’thriss knew the answer. His body would not be separated successfully from the Sanguilith. If it was destroyed, so too would be K’thriss. Surrounded by his friends there, in space of all places, ready to do battle with the Sanguilith, he began to feel something eclipse his fear and anger. It started small, but expanded quickly and overtook his thoughts as spoke. Maybe death wasn’t the only avenue here. Perhaps there was an alternative to his destruction by the Sanguilith. K’thriss felt a pleasing sensation rest in his chest: hope.

K’thriss Drow’b was a man who hoped to ultimately greet death with open arms. For now, however, he decided that, he wasn’t quite ready to. He turned to Rosie with the most confident face he could provide.

“I would like to... persist.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone else wonder what K'thriss was thinking as he tried to hide his metamorphosis?
> 
> Feedback always welcome. :)


End file.
